Left knee sounds like rice krispies when doing squats. Reason for concern?

When I do squats, my left knee snaps, crackles, and pops on the way down. No sounds on the way up. There isn't any pain whatsoever, just a noisy descent. Should I be concerned? What could be causing it?

Guys please be aware where as crepitus usually develops into a condition later on. I'm not quite sure why everyone is down playing it at this point, but if your experiencing consistent crepitus versus early morning crepitus for example, then it is something to keep in mind while you do your exercises. It is not a major concern if there is no pain associated yet, but why wait until you have pain to take it seriously?

I usually recommend that my patients pay attention to the joint that is causing a consistent crepitus and keep an eye on it.

It is something to keep an eye on, especially if it is occuring consistently

I really don't understand this, either. Both here and /r/fitness seems to have an overwhelming number of people chime in with 'if it doesn't hurt it's fine'.

On what basis are you people making your claims that a healthy joint moving well can also sound like rice crispies and have crepitus.

I cringe whenever someone posts a question like this because of the advice they receive and hope for their sake a comment like this gets upvoted.

Unless you have advanced arthritis where you literally have two pitted surfaces rubbing over one another, cartilage joint sounds are probably indicative of a bad movement pattern or restriction etc, not something inevitable you should just push through.

This exactly! I'm a massage therapist who works in a chiropractic office with a lot of sports-related injuries, and I would hazard a guess that 75% of the clients I work on regularly wouldn't be in the office if they had just gotten things checked out and changed bad habits years ago.

If something feels off, you should get it checked out to make sure its nothing, and then work on figuring out how to move in a way that doesn't make the movement feel off. Both of those steps require a professional. Stop pushing through and breaking yourselves!

The idea is that the crepitus is a sign of potential damage to the articular surfaces. coolcoothetank has a good point - why wait until symptoms occur to address it? Better to nip osteoarthritis or something like that in the bud, rather than just ignore it until you are dealing with pain and a very difficult to treat inflammatory process.

When I say "keep an eye on it", I mean pay attention to the exact movement, positions and times of day that your noticing the crepitus, and also take notice as to what movements do not cause it and how much ROM you have before it begins.

Also practice caution and do not over load that knee.

TLDR: Pay attention to when it happens, how it happens, and when it doesnt happen. This knowledge will come in handy in case this crepitus turns into a full blown case of OA later on in life

I think he means keep just one eye on it. The other has carte blanche for anything else in the room with you, unless of course you're experiencing crepitus in another joint during the same movement, in which case you should certainly keep an eye on that as well.

Physician here (now psychiatry but I HAVE done work in orthopedics and sports medicine during my training, hopefully someone a bit more qualified can chime in as well).

I have crepitus in my knees as well (since I was a child) and I've ran this by a lot of orthopods and they say that not all crepitus is pathological. I agree that you should watch for pain but I disagree that it usually develops into something. My understanding is that currently, there's nothing that you can do at this point (besides avoiding the exercise) to reduce the risk of arthritis. It's not uncommon that this is just something physiologic and likely will not develop into a condition.

No that is not crepitus, crepitus comes from friction at a joint space.

What your feeling is more than likely the iliopsoas tendon as it glides over its course of excursion with its tendon sheath.

This is fairly common for people to feel since, when they are doing abdominal exercises (especially lower abdominal exercises) they can't help but bring there hip flexors into it, of which iliopsoas is a major one

A doctor probably won't take you on if you don't have pain (at least not in Canada from my experience) but a good physiotherapist can take a look at your form and give your body a feel to determine what's happening. They can also recommended stretches and exercises to improve the situation.

Its highly likely that your patella is maltracking due to inflexible or imbalanced leg muscles. A physiotherapist will identify which ones those are (tight/weak hamstrings, tight IT bands, tight/weak hip flexors, weak VMO are all very common) and provide you with a program to help improve.

You also want to make sure that you are getting enough Omega 3 fatty acids and proper amounts of water in your diet. Both are very important for joint health. The jury is out on chondrotin/glucosamine/msm supplements, but I take them regularly. Becoming more diligent with my supplements and committing myself to proper stretching and flexibility have been tremendous aids for me in reducing pain from knee issues (patellar tendonitis left, chondromalacia patella right) that started out as painless crepitus.

PLEASE do not ignore knee issues. I made this mistake and it cost me dearly. Five years after originally discovering my issues and trying to fight through it because I was "too tough to slow down" I have paid the price. My running days are behind me for good and I fear that the end may be near for ice hockey as well, but I can still enjoy light cycling, swimming, and yoga to stay fit.

Any condition that starts off with crepitus usually develops into a condition later on. This is something I see over and again. If his knee sounds like rice crispies, he needs to be aware that there is active cartilage fraying somewhere between either his patellofemoral joint or between his femur and tibia. If there is no pain associated at this point then it is not a major concern as of yet, but he must be aware not to overload his knee (I.E. bottom of a squatting position with excessive weight on his shoulders)

Making sure not to perform exercises that compress your knee at the maximum end of range of motion would be a wise step to take.

For example: avoid exercises that have you in catchers position(maximal knee flexion under the load of your body weight) for a prolonged period of time.

Performing mid range exercises for example, Partial squats and the building up to full range parallel squats would be a wise step to take.

Basically if your experiencing crepitus a wise step to take is to exercise in the mid-range of motion and avoid bearing weight over that joint in any terminal range of motion. think of avoiding locking your knees out and avoiding flexing your knees entirely under load (catchers position in baseball)

Sure, bearing weight in an extreme terminal range of motion puts unnecessary strain not only on the ligaments that provide stability in that plane of motion, but also compresses the joint space over the surface area of contact.

For clarification when I say terminal range of motion I mean, avoid locking your knees all the way out if your using a leg press machine for example, or avoid sitting down in a catchers position like in baseball for prolonged periods of time, again as an example

I had this in a few body parts when I first started working out as well as other people I know. It's all gone away for me after some time, and as far as I know all the other people (who stuck with working out) as well.

If pain developes, stop the exercise and give that particular body part an extended rest before trying it again. If it still hurts after some time, go to a doctor. As long as it is just noise it is nothing to worry about.

As a bilateral ACL reconstruction guy, my knees used to sound like a bowl of rice crispies when doing leg exercises. I found that hyaluronic acid not only stopped the crackling but also reduced discomfort.

It's the stuff that holds liquid in your joints, skin, eyeballs, basically it keeps you plumped up. They have injectable HA they use in joint and eye surgeries, but you can take it orally and it will get to your joints.

I don't have a link handy, but there was a study on both beagle dogs and rats using radiographically marked HA and the scans showed it accumulated in the joints.

Is it in every position when squatting? I'm fairly crunchy all over but if I am careful when aligning my body, especially how far apart my legs are and the direction my feet point in I can get through 50+ repetitions without crunch, if I just go for it chances are I will crunch every time.

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